


XIII. Death

by FallenIsel (IseliaDragonwill)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dark, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22539574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IseliaDragonwill/pseuds/FallenIsel
Summary: "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left."My submission for the FFXV Tarot project.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Tides of Fate: A FFXV Tarot Project





	XIII. Death

**Author's Note:**

> When the FFXV Tarot came around, I knew I had to apply. A zine based around the idea of not only tarot, but drabble-length fics? Right up my alley! I was happy to submit this fic for the Death card, with Ardyn as the subject. My goal was to drive home not only the idea of a physical death, but a spiritual one as well. A loss of ideals. An end...and a beginning.
> 
> Information on Death: https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/death/
> 
> Comments and kudos are love <3

They said ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’, and Ardyn supposed there was some truth to those words, if only just. Little did they know that Hell was not a place, but a seemingly endless sojourn away from the light and that the road was paved not in good intentions but his failures–in the bones of all the ones he couldn’t save, sealed in the blood of his mangled feet. Little did they know of the withered trees that lined the path, their trunks twisted and bent as they stretched towards a sky stained with ink, blotted by clouds. 

Little did they know. 

How long had he been walking? In this desolate land, with no means to mark the passage of time, Ardyn had long since given up on ever finding solace. Perhaps he wasn’t fit for it, doomed to wander in the valley between life and death for eternity.

He clung to it still–the vague notion that he could be somehow saved from his fate.

_‘You need only submit.’_

It was so tempting. What had his actions ever brought him but suffering and pain? His hard-fought ideals, once a source of strength in a world that cared not if it abandoned him, now lay shattered by betrayal; the pieces, hidden in a legacy built on a lie. And if he was to be spurned, his hands no longer fit to lift the sickness from those afflicted, his name but a curse whispered on the winds of the past and forgotten by the future, then what was left for him? 

He knew the answer, spat like poison from the tongue of a man he once called ‘brother’. 

A monster, that’s what he had called him. Maybe that was all he had ever been, all he was ever meant to be. So, a monster he would become–a harbinger of death, a bringer of darkness. Those that had forsaken him in another life would see their children would fall, slaughtered by the savior they left to rot. 

And so too would the Healer fall, his resistance all but faded. From the dust would rise a man clad in black, wearing a twisted visage of who he once was, streaked in ichor and framing a Cheshire grin. 

_‘A pity. You could have been something once.’_

“No…” Ardyn whispered, breathing his last. “I’ve become something now. Something they won’t soon forget.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/iseliadragonwill) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/FallenIsel). Or if you prefer, you can follow my [Art Twitter](https://twitter.com/FallenIsel) for all the creative stuff and none of my babble.
> 
> If you'd prefer to remain anonymous, I also have CuriousCat: https://curiouscat.me/FallenIsel


End file.
